Robin kept waiting for another notification to appear, one that would tell him about some fantastic new class ability, like Invulnerable Immortality of Power… or something like that. Nothing appeared.
“Well, Opal, that seems kinda… lame.”
Opal was staring at the ceiling. Robin’s heart dropped. Just look, there’s probably nothing there. He peeked at the hole in the ceiling, moving only his eyes. To his dismay, he saw a beanbag chair-sized head poking through the gap, staring directly at him. He yanked the machete upwards, holding it in front of him. The spider didn’t react, just stared with all of its black eyes shining in the reflected light. Then it seemed to pull back for a moment, before slowly lowering itself to the floor by a web it was emitting.
The black eyes never left Robin. It stepped to the side, a slow, but jerking motion. It continued moving until it was near on of the other cabinets. Robin steadied his grip on the machete and pivoted slightly to keep it in front of him. This was weird… Why was it acting differently?
The second spider lowered itself into the room. This one seemed skinnier than the other one, like it had been starving. It skittered on its feet, like it was standing on something too hot. Robin stared at it, and it stared back for just a moment before leaping at him.
Unfortunately for it, the spider collided with the cabinet door that Robin stepped behind, rattling many of the bottles. Unfortunately for Robin, the impact knocked him completely into the shelves, collapsing all of them as he slammed into them full force. The broken shelves dumped their contents onto the stone floor at his feet, many of the stone, ceramic, clay, and glass bottles shattering, their contents hissing and burbling as they mixed. It was beginning to froth up around his feet!
Robin looked down in horror and shouted “Delay Reaction!” The frothing, iridescent mixture immediately froze. Robin yanked his leg from it, while pushing the door as hard as he could. The spider didn’t seem to know what to make of the door moving and had not gone around yet. Robin succeeded in freeing both his legs and readied his machete to try and whack the spider from around the cabinet door.
That was when the second spider hit him in a full tackle from the side. His machete was pinned to the side of his head, cutting into his scalp slightly as the spider moved, but it was the only thing keeping the spider from completely engulfing his head in its mouth. The huge barbs at the end of the chelicerae were scrabbling to find purchase, though, and were digging into his scalp. Robin screamed inarticulately, trying to push the spider off of him. It had him pinned in between the immobile mass of fluids and the cabinet door, and he just couldn’t find any leverage to move. Spiders were good at they did, after all.
“Help! Help me! Opal! Anyone!”
Robin felt a pulse of what felt like… an admission of weakness from Opal.
“I don’t care! Take it all! Reinforce Bug!”
*****
Opal clung to the shaking cabinet door, dancing wildly. She was too small to help the human! There was nothing she could do but dance and hope she was not noticed. She thought this at the human, and surprisingly, he responded.
“I don’t care! Take it all! Reinforce Bug!”
Opal felt a pulse within herself, like a giant was walking in the core. It pulsed again, and this time, she felt a web of energy radiate through her. It pulsed again, and the web encompassed her entire being. She felt herself growing, and quickly had to hop off of the cabinet lest it tumble over. She landed on the ground behind the still-screaming human and his arthropod assailant. She lashed out her claws and ripped open the abdomen of the spider, causing it to shriek and slam forward into the shelves in a mad attempt to flee. The shelves, however, were only hanging on to the cabinet by dangling screws at this point, and could not handle the weight, falling off completely. Her human scrambled out, pushing his way past the back legs and accidentally cutting his face further with his machete. He hacked once at the spider before Opal cut in, literally, completely opening the abdomen of the spider, causing it to begin erratic death-scrambles. The other spider had recovered from being bashed with the door, and was now on the opposite wall, preparing to leap at the human. Opal raised her claws over her head. She wouldn’t be responsible if the thing leapt towards death.
It did, but Opal did not have the chance to grab it, because her foolish human stepped up, swinging his machete while shouting “SHINING SWIPE!” He hit the leaping spider, but it was nothing special as far as attacks go, and he seemed startled when the spider kept coming with a machete lodged in it. She stepped forward and snatched the thing up in both her claws, taking advantage of the low weight of the starving spider. The human shouted and scrambled back to his feet, wiping the blood from his eyes.
He looked around the room frantically, and then moved over to a table. He began dragging it to the center of the room, and then dragged one of the smaller tables over to it. He placed it on top of the other table, and then began to climb up it. Opal did not think he was doing a very good job at it. He wasn’t even dancing.
When the human reached the top of the table, he stood up, and to Opal’s approval, he wobbled slightly as he reached for the trapdoor-grate that hung by a single hinge from the hole in the ceiling. When he had grabbed it, he moved it over and closed the simple latch on the other side. He slowly climbed down the table, then the other table, and then sat down hard on the floor, rolling onto his back.
*****
As if they had received a signal, the potions abruptly began swelling and frothing again. Robin looked over at them from where he lay on the floor and groaned. I should probably check to see if those spiders dropped anything and check those shelves before that gets out of control, he thought glumly, staring at the frothing and burping mass of potion-stuff.
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Robin groaned again and sat up. Get moving or you’ll be here forever. You might anyway.
The spiders dropped a total of seven more of the gold coins. One of them dropped a small, metallic coin-purse with a very small opening that Robin barely rescued from the growing goo pile. It had completely consumed the cabinet now, and seemed to be spreading to the tables. The wood was completely gone, but the metal from the latches and other components seemed to be gathering in the middle of it. There was also another crystallized eye. Robin took both.
Regal Spinneret The Regal Spinneret may be filled with gathered or created webs. Once per day, if full, the Regal Spinneret may spin a web spider no larger than a small cat. The spider will obey commands from the creator, regardless of whether they possess the Regal Spinneret. Created spiders persist for six hours or until destroyed. Spiders cannot speak, but they can write in all languages known to their creator, and are capable of passing along messages. Created spiders do not possess true sapience.
That was… interesting. It was a message-spider? Or a butler-spider? That could be useful. Robin stuck it into his satchel.
He glanced at the growing potion-pile. It had fully engulfed a table, and the metal was definitely breaking down rapidly and coagulating in the center of the slimy clump. Robin frowned and watched it for a moment. The table was almost entirely metal, but it was dissolving like a sugar cube being stirred in cold water.
It kind of looks like a giant cell, maybe a macrophage? He wasn’t sure. Grainy microscope photos and cheesy biology book drawings did not scale to full size as well as he might have hoped, when it came to identifying them. He looked around for Opal, and when he saw her on the ceiling at her normal size, he pointed to a cabinet on the opposite side of the room from the shivering blob. He walked over to it, Opal following him along the ceiling. He smiled slightly, seeing that she had understood.
He opened the cabinet, and inside were more jars. These ones looked fairly normal, though, and had masking-tape labels. Copper Sulfate, sodium carbonate, ethylene dichloride… Huh. This must be the chemical shelf… Robin, feeling decisive, took off his satchel, opened it and set it on the ground in front of him, and began rapidly dropping bottles into it. Never know what these might be useful for, and at the very least, I can throw them at spiders! The bottles sank into the satchel noiselessly.
Robin glanced back at the slimy mass. It had fully dissolved the table, and it looked like the reaction was slowing down. The broken-down metal seemed to have clumped into the middle of the mass in a rough spherical shape.
That looks WAY too much like a cell. Robin finished putting the last of the jars into his satchel, put it back, and stood up. The mass of ruined potions quivered slightly, and Robin froze. It was roughly the size of a refrigerator on its side now. Robin was all too aware that it was closer to the door than he was. He slowly took a step towards the next cabinet, and the mass quivered again. He took another step, slower this time, and the mass didn’t seem to react.
He measured every footstep over to the next cabinet. Once, he stepped too fast, and the mass shook, seeming to move ever so slightly in Robin’s direction. He slowed himself yet again. It took what felt like an eternity to reach the cabinet, and opening it took even longer. He didn’t make the slime move again, though, so he counted it as a success.
Huh, this is draining my MENSTAM, Robin noted. Is it the stress?
The cabinet was disappointing. It was full of scientific equipment, beakers, test tubes, several bunsen burners… The only thing that Robin felt any excitement towards was a very small tank of propane, the kind used for camping. Robin took everything anyway. His satchel of the generous matron had the room for it, so why not? He sighed and turned around.
That was a mistake.
The multicolored mass of ruined potions shivered and lurched towards him. Robin stared at it, unsure what to do. He glanced around the room. Three more cabinets… Is it worth it to try? The decision was taken out of his hands, however, as the blob burbled forward without Robin moving a muscle. Crap. Crapcrapcrap.
Opal!
He focused on her returning to him. She dropped off the ceiling onto his shoulder, landing suspiciously lightly. That worked! Nice to know she can be nimble, too… he thought, more than a little annoyed.
There’s probably no real point to hitting it with the machete. It’d be like hitting a jet of water from a fountain. Maybe I can hit it with something else…? Robin reached into his satchel and pulled out the Deverran Broom, sticking the machete into the satchel with his other hand. The broom felt more sturdy in his hands, oddly. This… doesn’t seem like it’s going to work, either. It’s just not big enough…!
Robin blinked. He had an idea. He shut the cabinet doors behind him, then turned around and hopped onto the metal table beside the cabinet, then onto the cabinet itself. Opal hopped onto the wall as he was climbing and began to dance wildly, a pink raver alone in a nonexistent storm.
Robin wedged the broom behind the cabinet on the side near the top. He snapped a glance at the iridescent, shimmering ovaloid mass of potionjuice-turned-slime. It had already crossed the room and was climbing Slimbing? onto the cabinet. Now or never.
He yanked the broom, pushing the top of the formerly plastic, now heavy wooden cabinet away from the wall, making it teeter madly towards the slime. As it tilted, Robin slid down the back of the cabinet and pushed with all of his might against the wall, putting his full weight on the wood of the cabinet’s back side.
He heard the impact as the cabinet connected with the slime, a sick ripping noise, and then the cabinet hit the core of the slime. Robin was jolted, the pain ringing in his fingers.
With the impact, Robin heard a thunk and then the cabinet turned partially sideways. He lost his balance and fell onto the floor, landing painfully a meter and a half away from the cabinet, unintentionally rolling. He scrambled to stand up, checking himself in frenetic twists and turns. The slime hadn’t gotten on him. He was nervous of what it might do to him, and terrified that he probably already knew, having seen the fate of the table.
Robin looked at the damage he had done to the slime, while moving backwards across the room, away from the table. Opal hopped onto the ceiling and ran across it towards him, taking a flying leap onto his chest at the end of her run that was not nimble whatsoever.
After Opal finished moving to his shoulder, Robin crouched to see what had become of the slime core. The glow of the mass made it easy to see that the core had a small dent in it, but was otherwise ...just fine, and the slime was actually devouring the eight hundred pound wooden cabinet, the wooden particles already adding to the overall mass of the slime. The wood particles from the cabinet it had already consumed were flowing towards the center now, as well.
Robin was startled by a notification that appeared. This one was different from the ones he had gotten before. He read it quickly, turning slightly to the side so that the slime was still within his sight.
Slay the Slime
You have created an Epic-level threat! The Slime is capable of dissolving most matter and will continue to grow. If the Slime is not slain before it leaves the Laboratory of the Mad Scientist, it will become a Primal-level Threat! Rewards: Slime Slayer title, ???, ???, ???
Epic-level…?
Robin turned and ran out of the room as fast as he could.